The present invention relates generally to communications systems and in particular, to a method and apparatus for managing channels in a communications system. Still more particularly, the present invention is directed towards a method and apparatus for managing channel quality in cable telephony system through measuring the quality of channels and assigning channels based on the measurements of channel quality.
Communications systems, such as a cable communications system, provide for data transmission using one or more radio frequency channels. During the transmission of data between communications units in a communications system, the onset of interference at a particular frequency may be sudden, and possibly catastrophic, rendering the particular frequency, also called a "channel," unusable. Further, interference in the form of ingress noise in a single incident can cause interference to several channels. This type of ingress noise or interference can be caused by wireless systems, such as cellular, as well as other types of equipment radiation, such as commercial and industrial equipment.
Additionally, various communications units using the cable communications system may require different levels of channel quality, depending on the type of data transmissions they use. For example, data transmissions for interactive multi-media services require a higher channel quality than data transmission carrying typical analog voice conversations. Accordingly, the interference in one channel used by a communications unit may be acceptable while the same interference is unacceptable for another communications unit.
Therefore it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus for determining channel quality such that interference can be avoided and channel allocations can be made based on channel quality.